Deal Roundup: Ola Financial scoops up over half of $50 mn invested in subdued dealmaking week

Funding activity in the Indian technology startup space has seen several fluctuations since the country went into lockdown mode to contain the spread of Covid-19.

In the last week of May, investors put a total of $50.4 million (disclosed deals) to work, which was nearly half of the previous week’s tally of $108 million. Ola Financial Services alone scooped up $27 million.

Investments were made across diverse sectors, with two companies in the fintech space, one each in sectors of edtech, agritech, foodtech, real estate, media tech, consumer electronics, logistics tech, healthtech and an electric vehicle maker. At least five of the investments were bridge rounds. A total of 12 startups raised funds, of which 5 were undisclosed amounts. 

Funding

Ola Financial Services: Ola Financial Services raised $27 million in a Series A round of funding led by Matrix Partners India, an early backer of the Bengaluru-based ANI Technologies’ cab aggregator arm Ola and its other business verticals including Ola Electric.

OnSiteGo: World Bank arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) invested $10 million into after-sales services provider for appliances and consumer electronics OnSiteGo. 

Awfis: Coworking space provider Awfis Space Solutions raised $5.3 million in a mix of equity and debt from British radiator company Bisque and New Delhi-based Link Investment Trust.

Euler Motors: The commercial electric vehicles manufacturer raised about $2.6 million as a part of its ongoing Series A funding round, from venture capital firm Inventus Capital India, Blume Ventures, Singapore based Jetty Ventures India Investments, and Sujeet Kumar, co-founder of Udaan.

CoinDCX: Neblio Technologies, which runs cryptocurrency trading platform CoinDCX, raised $2.5 million, from Polychain Capital and Coinbase Ventures.

Hoi Foods: Hoi Food Concepts, which operates cloud kitchens under the Hoi Foods brand, has raised $2 million in a bridge funding round, dubbed as a pre-Series A round, led by returning investor 1Crowd.

Toch: Mumbai-based Vogueme Technologies which owns and operates interactive video platform Toch raised over $1 million from SOSV and its cross-border accelerator program Chinaccelerator as well as Venture Catalysts backed 9Unicorns Fund.

M&A

AIWare.ai: Los Angeles based Cleareye.ai, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based fintech solutions provider, acquired Thiruvananthapuram headquartered startup AIWare.ai as part of its global expansion plans.

Etergo: Ola Electric Mobility, a subsidiary of ANI Technologies that runs ride hailing platform Ola, acquired Amsterdam-based electric scooter manufacturer Etergo.

Lateral Praxis: Farm-focused investment firm Pioneering Ventures acquired Mumbai-based agri-tech company Lateral Praxis.

Venture Capital Funds

Endiya Partners: IFC committed an equity investment of $10 million to Endiya Partners Fund II, the Hyderabad based venture capital firm focused on seed stage investments in emerging technology startups.